The present invention relates to a multi-piece solid golf ball composed of a resilient core, an intermediate layer and a cover. More particularly, the invention relates to a golf ball having a good feel on impact and an improved distance on shots with an iron.
Golf balls having a multilayer structure, particularly a three-piece structure, can substantially increase the distance of travel compared with one-piece and two-piece golf balls, and are thus known to be beneficial to golfers. Such three-piece golf balls include golf balls in which the intermediate layer and cover are formed so as to be relatively soft (JP 3505922), golf balls in which the cover has been made relatively thick (JP 3685248), golf balls in which the cover has been made relatively hard (JP-A 2005-218858, JP 3685245), golf balls having a small core (JP 2614791), golf balls in which the core has a relatively high initial velocity (unpublished Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-367321), and three-piece solid golf balls endowed with various hardness and layer thickness designs, such as those described in JP-A 2002-764, JP-A 2002-765 and JP-A 2002-315848.
In the above golf balls, much importance is placed on the distance traveled by the ball on shots with a driver, but these balls are not designed to satisfy golfers in terms of the feel or distance achieved on shots hit with an iron. The behavior of the ball differs when it is hit with a driver as opposed to when it is hit with an iron having a large loft angle. When the ball is hit with a driver, the entire ball deforms. On the other hand, when the ball is hit with an iron, deformation occurs at the surface of the ball and the portion of the ball up to 2-3 mm from the surface, thus making the structure near the surface of the ball important.
In distance balls which have hitherto been developed so as to travel farther on shots taken with a driver, the ball is provided with a hard cover to increase the initial velocity on impact and lower the spin rate, but the feel and controllability of the ball on shots with an iron are diminished. Modifying the design of such prior-art distance golf balls by softening the cover so as to improve the ball performance on shots with an iron ends up increasing the spin rate when the ball is hit with a driver, which shortens the distance of travel.
Hence, there has existed a desire to develop and furnish to golfers a golf ball which travels a satisfactory distance on shots with a driver while reliably achieving the desired distance on shots with an iron, and which also has a good feel when played with an iron.